2015 — the Year of Learning

I have gained a bad habit over the course of the last few years. A habit draped in egotism and jealousy. I stopped reading other writers’ blogs, stopped studying writing manuals, stopped trying to learn and grow in my craft. I DID go to graduate school to study writing and literature, but when you are earning a Master’s degree, most of the work is on you. I taught myself, for the most part, picking and choosing the books I wanted to pay attention to — books mostly written by dead authors who couldn’t make me feel inferior by their current success while I had none.

I was lost in my own jealous ignorance. I was stagnant. I refused to learn any more because what I had learned over the course of twenty years had done nothing to help me become a “real” writer.

I was wrong.

Even at this moment, I am tempted to fall into self-pity. I want to say things like “I suck at writing and always will”, and “every time I see a fellow author’s success, I feel horrible”, and “I don’t even know what to write on my own blog, which makes me less than a writer”. I want to fall into my old habits.

But old habits — while they die hard — must, in the end, still die, if we are to grow.

And I need to grow.

So, I will not only be reading and learning from my fellow writers once again, but I’d like to reblog the posts that I find especially helpful. If you’re a fellow writer, please let me know if you have writing posts I could read and share. Beyond that, I will be looking, myself.